Catherina
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
GUENOT PHILIPPE
Between CENTURION and VALHALLA RISING, this is a gruesome, gritty, brutal medieval tale, not for the squeamish, not for the sissies, billions miles away from Hollywood or Guy Ritchie's crap destined to idiots. I enjoyed it from the beginning to the end. No super heroes here, only characters facing their destiny, their doom. There should be many more films like this one. Hands up folks. But I perfectly understand that not everyone can like it.
jakob13
Brendon Muldowney's 'Pilgrimage' is an odyssey, so to speak, of a group of monks, guardians of a sacred relic, across the Irish landscape, shrouded undreamed menace that moors and vales foreshadow, to its final destination the seat of papal power in Rome.The narrative, written by Jamie Hannigan, traces a path though woodlands, as it winds its way in 1290 towards the port of Waterford where a ship awaits the holy cargo.As we travel into the heart of history, the story takes a road of themes that we can recognize today in holy war, political tensions between west and east, Europe and the Muslim world that play itself out in of constant movement, in a setting fraught with danger and death. In the silences of the Irish countryside, the perilous journey causes great stress and ominous presence of Norman conquerors; of the great struggle of religion and pagan beliefs; of faith and superstition; and of rough justice and the ever-present supernatural.Yet, 'Pilgrimage', in the way the story line works itself out is simply the woven strands of plot are drawn ever tightly together into a poetic or maybe a mystical finale; it is also the moral and spiritual education of Dairmuid (Tom Holland), raised in a monastery in the Irish west where Gaelic is spoken, as he ventures into a wider and dangerous and unknown world.And in the end it is his innocence that saves him from death that his fellow monks and Norman nobles and the zealous fanatical Cistercian monk meet at the hands of wily pagans who stand outside the Church's redemption.Duplicity is a common theme: Christian piety and simplicity versus raw and naked politics, a harking back to the Guelf and Ghibelline controversy, opposing factions that, one supports the papacy and the other kings and emperors, for possession of the sacred relic will determine the fate of Western Christendom.For the pope, the relic--a stone that crushed the skull of the apostle Matthais will prove him the Church triumphal and triumphant in a holy Crusade that once and for all wrest Jerusalem from the hold of the Muslims.For the Norman sire Raymond de Merville (Richard Armitage), it will enable the French king to bargain with the Pope for his right to influence the church in France, a precursor of a national state and feeling.For Brother Geraldus (Stanley Weber), the stone as he lays it in the hands of the Pope, will seal his rise in the esteem of the Pope and promotion to higher office if not election as Pontiff, a Faustian bargain he made by denouncing his father as a heretic.And for Dairmud, his faith will never fails him through intrigue, betrayal, murder and grotesque mayhem. And then for the mute (Jon Bernal) who protects him and fight valiantly to protect the lad until his death, protecting the stone is an act of atonement for past sins and crimes he had amassed in the sacking of Constantinople?And into the world of extraordinary violence and faith, and our imagination. Muldowney's camera captures sharply and clearly the symbols of death and doom, heavenly wrath and the symbols associated with death in the presence of crows, ravens and black birds of carrion. 'Pilgrimage' inspires us as much as it repels us by its turbulence and claps of thunder and raging thunderbolts.The story is historically true in detail: it reflects the linguistic fluency of the time: Gaelic, English, French and Latin; the fluidity of the camera, its sharp color and images that create an atmosphere of dread and hope; and, the suspense that lends itself to atmosphere of dread and hope, doom and salvation; and ultimately, the sole survivor, young Dairmuid whose simple childlike faith and purity of mind and soul mirrors the promise of salvation that Jesus foretells in 'Matthew'.'Pilgrimage' is a better film than publicly received. It is a small film financed for the most part by the Irish Film Board, which may account for its being slighted by the critics.The vividness of color and the superb camera work and the acting make it a film worth seeing again and again. Still, it is not a story for the faint of heart.
areatw
While 'Pilgrimage' is much better than expected in many areas, especially for a low-budget medieval drama, it falls short in two of the most crucial aspects of any film - the development of the storyline and characters. The story just isn't up to the standard needed for a film. It's too generic and completely forgettable. The action scenes are few and far between and, while they are well produced, they don't make up for the many lulls and dull patches the film goes through.It's a similar story with the characters. They are bland and uninteresting, with next to no character development. If the characters aren't intended to be the focus of the film, then the plot should at least be good enough to make up for it. Unfortunately it isn't and the film just ends up being boring. The best thing about 'Pilgrimage' is the cinematography and overall production value - it feels like a much more expensive production than it actually is.
eyefordetail
Let's start by saying it is a good movie. The character development and the acting is solid and the look and feel of the movie is consistent and believable. The choreography and continuity is very professional, as are the other technical elements, such as soundtrack and cinematography. One actually feels sorry for the actors having to go through the obvious rigours of cold water and cold climate scenes. But this is why it is like watching synchronized swimming: You get the feeling at the end of the movie that it was rather pointless. Very well done but without a real purpose. It feels like a long pilot episode of a series where the writers first wants to get a response before writing the next script. The movie aptly ends with the dialogue: "So where to now"? And this is the summation - where to now? Perhaps the comment that the script writer wrote in the margin accidentally became part of the script. I loved Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal. Richard Armitage positioned himself as someone to really keep an eye on.
